5:57pm Thursday 29th March 2001
The absolutely wonderful villagers of Boreham Wood will always be special to Hollywood star Dana Wynter. She tells reporter MARK FOY why from her Californian mountain-top home
The villagers of Boreham Wood will always hold a special place in the heart of Hollywood star Dana Wynter for saving her father from war-time captivity.
Dana was seven-years-old when officials arrived at the door of the family home in Clarendon Road and took her father, a German-born doctor, for internment.
Hundreds of Dr Peter Winter's patients and friends from Borehamwood and the surrounding area signed a petition for his release, which was sent to Parliament.
As a result of the campaign, Dana's father, who had been sent to the Isle of Man, was re-united with his family and allowed to continue running his surgery.
"His wife started the petition and there were hundreds of names on it the people in the village were absolutely wonderful," said Dana.
The actress, who now lives in the United States, began her movie career in the 1950s and starred in films such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Airport.
Born Dagmar Winter, in London, Dana moved to Borehamwood at the age of six with her parents and younger sister, to live above her father's surgery.
The house was on the corner of Clarendon Road and Shenley Road, and Dana used to travel by bus each day to Rosary Priory Convent in Bushey Heath.
"We used to play tennis in the street outside the house and numerous film studios were just up the road but at that time I wanted to be a doctor," she said.
Dr Winter's patient list included some nuns at the Order of Our Ladies of Sion Convent, in Theobald Street, who persuaded him to send his daughter for French lessons.
"I remember walking down that road to my lessons during the war when the bombs were falling down," she said.
After her father returned home from his internment, he was appointed as the chief medical officer of two local factories which manufactured bombs.
"It was so shocking and strange that he was taken away because he never had any sympathy with what was happening in Germany," Dana said.
Nevertheless, Dana this week said that she had very fond memories of her time in Borehamwood, and of the many people she met at the surgery.
"The patients were all like family to me and the village was so charming and relaxing," she said.
The Winters left Borehamwood around 1948, when the doctor, who had previously run a practice in Tangier, decided to return to Africa.
Dana got a taste for acting when she joined a dramatic society while at university in South Africa, and decided to return to London to study drama.
Following some theatre work, Dana was chosen to play a lady-in-waiting in the movie Knights of the Round Table, filmed at MGM in Borehamwood in 1953.
But her hopes of achieving her first big break failed to materialise, because the leading lady, Ava Gardner, who had the role of the Queen, took a dislike to her.
"I was called and told that Ava really would prefer it if I was not in the film they apologised and said they would make it up to me," Dana said.
Soon afterwards Dana, who was then still called Dagmar, decided to change her Christian name so she would not be confused with another actress.
"I was told that there was a big, busty, blonde woman called Dagmar who was already a great hit in America," she said.
In 1955 she signed with Twentieth Century-Fox, and the following year she took the leading female role in the classic science fiction film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Then followed two successful war films, D-Day the Sixth of June and Sink the Bismarck!, in which she appeared alongside the British actor Kenneth More.
Dana later joined an all-star cast, including Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin and Jacqueline Bisset, in the high altitude drama Airport, released in 1970.
On her retirement from acting a few years ago, she worked as a journalist for a short-time, writing features articles for The Guardian newspaper.
These days, Dana, who has a son, dedicates her time to campaigning on animal welfare issues, based at her mountain home in California.
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